A petition on the Town of Athabasca pool borrowing bylaw bearing 346 signatures has been received by town administration.
Each signature on the petition now needs to be validated by administration, which will check to ensure the signer is a town resident and over the age of 18. Administration has 30 days to check the signatures.
If at least 299 signatures are validated, the petition will force a vote on whether town council should borrow $5 million for the new pool project.
Town councillor Nichole Adams said she would be surprised if more than 50 signatures were deemed invalid.
“I’m hopeful. That’s a large percentage of the petition. I would be surprised if they managed to disqualify that many,” she said.
Adams and fellow councillor Tanu Tyska-Evans were a driving force behind the petition, going door to door for signatures along with a small group of other citizens.
Adams said she is happy that the public may finally have their say, explaining the petition is representative of a large portion of the town population.
“When you think about our population of 3,000 people, some of those are children, and now we have almost 350 people who signed a petition say they wanted to vote. That’s a big chunk of voters,” Adams said..
“I’m exicted about letting the public have their say and letting the public make this decision, and I’ll support whatever the public decides to go with when we vote.”
Chief administrative officer Ryan Maier explained that a vote will need to be set by council if the petition is valid.
“We will review it and if it has the valid number of signatures, we will bring it to council to set a date for a vote,” Maier said.
